Director,
T.E.(Terry)
Manning,
Schoener
50,
1771 ED
Wieringerwerf,
The
Tel:
0031-227-604128
Homepage:
http://www.flowman.nl
E-mail:
(nameatendofline)@xs4all.nl : bakensverzet
Incorporating innovative
social, financial, economic, local administrative and productive structures,
numerous renewable energy applications, with an important role for women in
poverty alleviation in rural and poor urban environments.
"Money is not the key that
opens the gates of the market but the bolt that bars them"
Gesell, Silvio The Natural
Economic Order
Revised English edition, Peter
Owen, London 1958, page 228
Edition 01:
POLICY
IMPLICATIONS OF AN INNOVATIVE MODEL FOR SELF-FINANCING ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABLE
INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT FOR THE WORLD’S POOR
By
T.E.Manning*
A
model for self-financing ecological sustainable integrated development for the
world’s poor (referred to in the rest of this article as “the Model”) has been
presented. The Model is in the public domain. It can be downloaded from website
http://www.flowman.nl/, which is controlled
in the public interest by the Dutch NGO Stichting Bakens Verzet in Amsterdam.
Interested parties can use the Model to draft their own sustainable integrated
development projects free of charge and to apply for seed financing for
them.
The Model has far-reaching
policy implications in many sectors. This paper describes some of them. The
Model weaves social, financial, service and productive structures together into
a single tightly-knit development fabric. The fibres of the fabric are carefully
interlinked, so there are several possible ways of making an analysis of its
effects on national and international development policies. Anthropological,
economic, financial, political, social, and service- and production-oriented
paths can all be followed.
An
anthropological approach is used for this particular paper. The development of
social groupings of humans, in particular over the last 11.000 years is used as
the basis for the choice of administrative levels for project applications under
the Model. About 11.000 years ago, nomadic bands of dozens of hunter-gatherers
(mostly defined as “extended families” or “clans”) started producing food and
forming village groups. (Diamond J., Guns, germs, and steel, Vintage,
London, 1998). Diamond refers to
the village groups as “tribes” comprising several extended families with an
upper limit of “a few hundred” where “everyone knows everyone else by name and
relationships” (Ibid. p.271). Prof. Robin Dunbar of Liverpool University
suggests that the size of the human brain is linked to social practices
developed to bind small groups of 150+ members together. (Grooming, gossip,
and the evolution of language, Faber and Faber, London,
1996).
Even
today, many rural villages, especially African villages, typically have
populations of “a few hundred” people. Even larger villages with populations of
a few thousand tend to be formed of clusters of smaller settlements each with “a few
hundred” inhabitants. (See detailed lists of villages for draft projects at
website http://www.flowman.nl/, and in
particular the detailed population distribution maps for the Koulikoro project
in Mali).
The
basic administrative level used in the Model is usually called a tank commission. It can also be called
a local development commission. The tank commissions each represent 40-50
families grouped around a decentralised clean drinking water tank. The number of
people served by each tank is usually between 200-350. This corresponds to
Diamond’s “tribes” with an “upper limit of a few hundred”(op.cit.). The members
of the tank commissions are expected to be mostly women. Health clubs are first
set up in each tank commission area to make sure the women there can organise
themselves and participate actively in the election and administration
processes. The people in each tank commission area decide how many tank
commission members they want to choose. The commissions will usually have 3 –7
members. They have many important
tasks. They are the real hub of the many project structures. An active role for
women at this level goes a long way towards addressing the so-called “gender
problem”. Tank commissions also choose a representative to the intermediate
administrative level, called well commissions. These in turn choose central
committees at project management level. Women’s deep and direct involvement in
project planning, execution, and management is therefore actively promoted at
all project levels.
Figure
1 illustrates the main tasks of each tank (or local development)
commission:
(Fig.
1)
Illustration of the tasks of tank comissions.
The second, or intermediate,
administrative level provided for in the Model is the well commission. It can also be called an area
development commission. The well commissions are the equivalent of Jared
Diamond’s “chiefdoms” with “several thousand” inhabitants where “for any person
[living there] the vast majority of other people…. were neither closely related
by blood or marriage nor known by
name.” (op.cit. p.273). They developed some 7500 years ago as a result of higher
population densities made possible by the local cultivation of food. Leadership
institutions (“chiefdoms”) are believed to have evolved to create ways of
resolving conflicts naturally arising amongst inhabitants not directly bound to
each other by blood or marriage. Of special interest to integrated development
projects in the modern world is that the first systems for the collection and
re-distribution of wealth and the first forms of division of labour were
established in this phase. “The most distinctive economic features of chiefdoms
was their shift from reliance solely on the reciprocal exchanges characteristics
of bands and tribes……..[to] an additional new system termed a redistributive
economy.” (op.cit. p.275).
(Fig.
2)
Illustration of the
tasks of the well commissions.
The well commissions
provided for in the Model typically represent about 2000-2500 inhabitants. This
population base supports some modern essential services, too. A typical working
area for general practitioners in industrialised countries is 1 doctor to
2000-2500 inhabitants. In the Netherlands this was 1 to 2347 on 1st
January 2006 (J.Muysken et al, Cijfers uit de registratie van huisartsen –
peiling 2006, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL),
Utrecht, 2006.) Well commission
areas can also support a secondary education structure for pupils from the 2-4
primary schools in their area. (Notes on education policies, below). Project
structures at this level include a transactions clearance structure for the
local money systems, and a structure for the manufacture of mini-briquettes for
high efficiency cooking stoves used in the area.
Each well commission has a
member nominated by each tank commission it serves. The number of members will
therefore vary from one commission to another, usually between 5 and 9. Each
well commission chooses intermediate level micro-credits and local money
transactions registration coordinators. It also chooses representatives to the
central structures management committee, and to the central committees running
the local money systems, the Cooperative Local Development Fund, and where
applicable, the Cooperative Health and Education funds. As women are expected to
have a majority at tank commission level, they can be expected to nominate
female representatives to the well commissions. Women should therefore be well
represented, usually with a majority, at this intermediate level
too.
The third, or project level
administrative structure provided in the Model represents all 50.000-70.000
inhabitants living in a given project area. Jared Diamond refers to this level
as “states”, with “over 50.000” inhabitants. (op cit. p. 268).
Individuals in each project area must be able to associate with and actively
participate in the organs running the project structures. The project area must
be “comprehensible” to them. The average size of the ancient Greek city state is
believed to have been about 40 km across, so that a leader could walk from the city centre (at the centre of
the state) to the farthest point of the state and return home the same day. The
total presumed average population was up to 100.000. The average size of a city
or “polis” is thought not to have exceeded 20.000, though a few individual
centres may have attained a population of 50.000. (C.A.Doxiadis, The ancient
Greek City and the City of the Present, Ekistic, vol.18, no. 108, 1964,
pp.346-364)
At the same time, the
population in the area must be large enough to offer a market supporting
specialisation of productive activities and services. It must also be able to
provide a variety of productive activities and services wide enough to meet the
basic needs for a good quality of
life for all in the project area. “We may thus define the optimum number of the
population [of an ideal state] as “the greatest surveyable number required for
achieving a life of self-sufficiency”” (Artistotle, Politics, Book VII, Chapter
IV, tr. E. Barker , Oxford University Press, London, 1948).
The choice made in the Model
in favour of local economy systems with an average of 50.000 to 70.000
inhabitants is therefore anything but new. However, there is nothing critical or
mystical in the number. Individual project areas may have fewer or more
inhabitants depending on population densities, and geographic, cultural and
ethnic aspects including language, and in particular on the preferences
expressed by the local population. Project areas in developing countries today
are seldom as densely populated as Greece at the time of the ancient City States. The population
of Greece is believed at that time to have reached 7-9 million (Dioxiadis,
op.cit.). Some project areas under the Model may therefore be larger than areas
covered by the Greek city states, especially where they include regional or
national nature reserves.
Third level project
management structures are formed by representatives nominated at well commission
level. They include central committees for any one or more project structures,
for the Cooperative Local Development Fund, for the Local Money system, and
where applicable, for Cooperative Health and Education Funds. Since each well
commission nominates a member to each central committee, the number of members
will vary from project to project, but will usually be about 35. The central
committees, which can be viewed as “parliaments”, meet once a year or more
frequently if necessary. They choose management teams, which can be viewed as
“governments”. The management teams are expected to be small, with 3-7 members
including administrative staff.
Each of the three
administrative levels described has its own clearly defined tasks, including the
election of those at the next level above that it will have to answer to.
Fig.
3
Chart illustrating the administrative chain.
Figure 4 gives a summary of
common tasking at each of the three levels. The list is not intended to be
complete. The Model provides for the provision of basic social, financial,
productive and service structures necessary to a good quality of life for all.
The same structures also open the way to countless other activities and
initiatives which are as varied as the minds of those conceiving them. No
attempt is made even to imagine them.
Fig. 4
Model for self-financing
ecological sustainable integrated development.
Tank
commissions. |
Well
commissions. |
Project
level. |
Health
clubs/hygiene education. |
Management
of well sites. |
Supervision
and statistics. |
Drinking
water.Drinking water. |
Water
supply back-up. |
Maintenance
& statistics. |
Family
sanitation. |
Washing
places. |
Training
for housewives. |
Rainwater
harvesting. |
Water
sampling. |
Water
testing. |
Local
money assistants. |
Registration
local money transactions |
Local
money statistics, Inter-project relations. |
Collection
of contributions. |
|
Conflict
resolution. |
Collection
of loan repayments. |
|
Conflict
resolution. |
About
60% of micro-credit grants. |
About
25% of micro-credit grants. |
About
15% of grants. |
First-level
social safety net. |
Second
level social safety net. |
Project-level
safety net. |
Production
bio-mass for local use. |
Production
of mini-briquettes. |
Statistics. |
Nurse |
Doctor. |
Local
hsopital. |
Primary
school. |
Secondary
school. |
Trade
schools, propadeuse for University. |
Lighting
for study purposes. |
|
|
Radio-telephone
communications (work for blind) |
|
Local
radio station. |
Sports
clubs. |
Intermediate
facilities. |
Project
level competition. |
Theatres,
cultural groups. |
Physical
Facilities. |
Cultural
circuits. |
Personal
food storage facility. |
Cooperative
food storage. |
Export/import
cooperatives. |
The Model applies in
principle both to poor urban and rural areas in both developing and
industrialised countries. However, preference is given to the execution of pilot
projects in rural areas in developing countries. (See further under “Demographic
Development Policies” below.)
Policy
consequences
Project
execution under the Model has many, far-reaching, policy implications in many
sectors and at all levels. At the same time, it must be stressed that the Model
does not claim to offer solutions to all the problems developing countries face.
Projects under the Model cannot act as substitutes for state obligations. Some
areas of activity mentioned below, such as curative health and general education
issues, are not directly addressed in the Model at all. Other sectors, such as
large-scale public works, defence and security, fall outside the scope of local
economic development and are not even mentioned below. However, the Model
provides for the creation of local social, financial, service and productive
structures. These structures can be used to promote the gradual development of some services, taken for granted in
industrialised countries, that people in poor countries do not even dare to
dream of. Self-financed where necessary, and at a surprisingly low cost. In those cases, the following
notes set out where they might want to go, and how they could get there. It may
take many years, even decades, for them to arrive.
In short, the Model
addresses some problems basic to a good quality of life for all in the project
area, and solves them
directly. It can contribute
actively to solving other problems over a longer term. Finally, there are some
areas outside local economic development where it has little or no direct
influence at all. Notwithstanding
first impressions some readers may have, the following descriptions are not
idealistic. The Model does not restate known development problems. It offers
concrete down-to-earth solutions to them. The paradigms and the concepts
presented are mostly so simple and obvious they should be viewed by most people
as an expression of plain common sense. The common sense of the ordinary man or
woman in the street. No university degrees are needed to understand them. None
were required to develop them. No special expertise is needed to put them into
practice. They enable the world’s poorest to design, execute, run, maintain and
pay for their own development within the framework of open, cooperative,
interest-free, inflation-free economic environments where genuine competition is
free to flourish
If
the solutions to world-wide poverty alleviation issues really are so simple,
some readers may wonder why they have not been applied before. That is a very
good question. The answers to it go to the heart and the nature of the currently
dominating economic system. But they do not fall within the scope of this paper.
Demographic
development policies
Centralisation
of power through the dumping of vast numbers of people in mega-slums in
unsustainable, uneconomic, ultra-vulnerable mega-cities in developing countries
is unnecessary, foolish, and
ethically unacceptable. In our times, it is politely called “urbanisation”.
Contrary to what we are sometimes led to believe, it is relatively easy to
control vast, poor, unorganised, disconnected, disinherited, urban masses both
individually and collectively deprived of any means of providing for even their
own most basic requirements. Civil disorder may sometimes break out, but seldom
has permanent effect. “Popular riot, insurrection, or
demonstration is an almost universal urban phenomenon, and as we now know, it
occurs even today in the affluent megalopolis of the developed world. On the
other hand the fear of such riot is intermittent. It may be taken for granted as
a fact of urban existence, as in most pre-industrial cities, or as the kind of
unrest which periodically flares up and subsides without producing any major
effect on the structure of power.” (E.J. Hobsbawm, Cities and
insurrections, Global Urban Development Magazine, vol.1, no.1, May
2005.) One of the purposes of the
Model is to counter this “urbanisation” by ensuring that people in rural areas
attain a good quality of life there with a full range of basic structures and
services and employment opportunities. Once a good quality of life in rural
areas has become reality, the Model can be applied in poor urban communities,
where its principles are just as effective. The Model is in principle applicable
to poverty alleviation in depressed rural and urban areas in industrialised
countries as well.
Empowerment
of women
The
important role played by women in structures at the three administrative levels
has already been described. The Model enables women to play an active (leading)
role in local development issues. They are structurally freed from the drudgery
of having to fetch water and firewood and, with their children, from the dangers
of smoke (air pollution in and around their homes), water-borne diseases, and
diet insufficiencies. Financial structures such as local money system,
interest-free micro-credits, and cooperative buying groups put at their disposal
greatly expand their freedom to take productivity initiatives for which local
and project level markets are created. Their formal money budget possibilities
are extended. They and their children will have (with time) a better chance of
structural medical care and formal education, including hygiene education. They
will all without exception enjoy the benefits of drinking water, sanitation, and
waste recycling facilities.
Employment and
income
Tank commission members,
like all other persons active for the project, are fully paid for their work under the
local money systems set up as part of project execution. Self-financing
sustainable integrated development projects under the Model will usually have
200-250 tank commission areas. This leads to the creation of 1000-2000 jobs some
of which will be full-time and others part-time according to the decisions
independently taken by the people living in each area. Projects under the model typically
create up to 4000 jobs and give direct employment to about 10% of the adult
population. The remaining 90% of the adult population is free to use the local
money and interest-free micro-credit structures created by the project for the
purposes of productivity increase.
At least Euro 1500 in interest-free
micro-credit finance is made available to each family for productivity increase
in each ten year period. Unemployment in project areas should be eliminated
within a period of 4-5 years, though speed of adoption and use of the structures
will never be uniform. It will vary greatly from one project area to another and
from one zone to another within each project area. It will be “spotted” and
irregular. Much depends on the leadership qualities of those (especially women)
chosen to take responsibility for activities at the various levels. One well-led
tank commission will set an example for the others in a well-commission area.
One ably-led well commission will set an example for others in the project
area.
Financial
policies
Projects set up cooperative,
interest-free, inflation-free, local financial environments, within which
private initiative and genuine competition are free to flourish. Basic financial
instruments created include local money systems and interest-free cooperative
micro-credit structures paid for and run by the people themselves. These basic
financial instruments can be supplemented as required by self-financed
self-terminating special purpose buying cooperatives at tank commission, well
commission and project level and by local interest-free cooperative banking and
insurance facilities. All formal money financial structures are operated within
the framework of the local money systems set up, so not only are they
interest-free, but the services are usually supplied without any formal money
cost to users as well. Formal money costs for interest and services
traditionally connected with financial products are retained in the project
areas. Local populations make small monthly formal money contributions into
their Cooperative Local Development Fund. These contributions are used for
multiple recycling in the form of interest-free micro-credits for productivity
purposes. The local financial environments created during project execution
operate in parallel and in harmony with existing formal money structures. The
local systems do not substitute the formal money ones. Except for products and
services provided for project execution, users are always free to choose whether
to conduct a transaction under the local money systems or under the traditional
formal money system. The local money structures are all identically time-based.
They interact with each other to form a patchwork quilt of cooperative
interlinked local economy systems. Cooperation between systems is always on a
zero balance basis, to avoid all risk of financial leakage from one project area
to another. (Model, complete index, section 5.21 – Interest-free cooperative
money structures); (Model, complete index, section 5.22 – Interest-free
cooperative micro-credit structures). The network of powerful interlinked
local economy systems forms in turn a strong, independent, national economy in
host countries.
Social security
policies
Few developing countries are
known for their efficient social security schemes in support of the poor, the
sick, the elderly and the handicapped. More often than not, the sick have to pay in cash on the spot
for medical help. If they (or their families) are unable to pay, they cannot get
access to the services. In many countries, parents of schoolchildren have to pay
relatively high school fees and for school books and school uniforms. Sometimes
they even have to pay teachers’ wages where education ministries fail to fulfil
their duty to do so. This means that poorer families are often unable to send
their children, especially their daughters, to school. Project applications
under the Model can make a powerful contribution to social solidarity in
developing countries, as they set up a three-tiered social safety network for
the weakest members of society, both for their obligations under the local money
systems and for their formal money contributions to their formal money
Cooperative Local Development Fund.
Control and ownership of
local project structures
Management and ownership of
all tank commission level structures set up during project execution are vested
by the project in the “local tank commission for the time being”. Physical
service structures vested in them include drinking water and lighting facilities
and project structures provided in schools and clinics situated in their tank
commission area. The tank commissions also manage the operation at tank
commission level of the local money, interest-free micro-credit and waste
recycling systems set up during project execution. They are responsible for the collection
of the monthly contributions paid by each inhabitant into the Cooperative Local
Development Fund and for the operation of the social security or safety nets set
up for the poor, the sick, the aged, and the handicapped. They organise the
election of representatives to intermediate level (well-commission) structures
and of local money transaction specialists. Physical and administrative
structures run by the tank commissions can also be extended to activities in the
health and education sectors, as described below, and to interest-free
cooperative purchasing and investment initiatives. Similarly, intermediate
structures are vested by the project in the “well commission for the time
being”. Project-level structures are vested by the project in the “central
committee for the time being”. The social safety nets set up, together with
strong local social control and extended guarantee structures built into
micro-credit loan agreements should reduce defaults in the payment of
contributions. Default rates for loans made by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad
Yunus’s Grameen Bank were less than
two percent notwithstanding interest rates up to 18%. (M.Yunus, Banker to the
Poor, Public Affairs, New York 2003). Micro-credit loans under the Model are
interest-free and free from all formal money costs, as they are managed under
the local money systems set up.
Complementary
interests
A qualifying feature of the
activities of the tank commissions and of all other structures set up under the Model is that they fit in with, and
operate in harmony and in parallel with existing political, financial, and
administrative structures. For instance, the local money systems set up are
operated in parallel with the existing formal money system in the project’s host
country. Except for transactions carried out for the project itself, users are
always free to choose whether to conduct a transaction under the local money or
the formal money system. Tank and well commission members and management may
also be members of statutory or voluntary local development agencies or
organisations. In some cases, the formation of the tank commissions
(independently of or together with intermediate and project level structures)
may be helpful in creating and running, free of charge, local development organs
foreseen in national legislation. For instance, in the case of Togo, the Village
Development Committees (CVD), which are mostly inoperative and lack adequate
finance, could be built into project structures foreseen by the Model. The
administration of the Togodogo Reserve (Yoto District, Togo) can offer work
opportunities to local people under the local money system to help achieve
sustainable management of the Reserve for which no formal money funds are
currently available.
Traditional leadership and
land ownership structures
Project structures are not
intended to interfere with the power and recognition of traditional, elected and
non-elected, institutions such as village heads, chiefs, religious leaders,
mayors, town councils, health boards, water boards, tax department, police
commissioners, or members of parliament. The tasks carried out by the project structures are all new ones,
created by the people themselves (including mentioned local leaders as
individuals) within the framework of each integrated development project. As the
quality of life in each project area increases as a result of project execution,
the status of the traditional institutions is expected to grow. For the tax
department, for instance, a taxation base will be created over time where none
existed before. Traditional leaders are free to take advantage of project
structures for the management of communal property. Management of communally
owned tribal land and natural mineral and renewable income resources can be
brought free of charge under the
financial structures created by the project, so that costs and benefits can be
equitably distributed amongst the owner populations. For instance, income from
the sale of sustainably harvested wood from communally owned forests or from the
use by community members or nomads of communally owned land for grazing can be
distributed amongst the communal owners using the financial instruments set up
by the project. The cost of protecting
natural resources such as flora and fauna can be brought under the local
money systems and divided amongst community members to supplement the limited
formal money resources available at national and regional
level.
Millennium development
goals
Project applications under
the Model provide complete structures for full, high quality coverage for
drinking water, sanitation, waste
recycling, smoke eradication and other services for 100% of the population,
without exclusion, in the project areas. The global formal money cost does not
exceed Euro 100 per inhabitant. Of this, 25% is provided directly by the
inhabitants themselves, in the form of work done for project execution fully
paid under the local money systems set up and “converted” into formal money at
the rate of Euro 3 per working day of eight hours. The remaining 75% is
initially supplied by external support agencies in the form of seed finance. If
the seed finance is in the form of a grant, monthly contributions paid by
inhabitants into their Cooperative Local Development Fund continue to be
recycled interest-free for micro-credits after the close of the first period of
ten years. If the seed finance is in the form of an interest-free ten year loan,
the contributions paid by inhabitants during the first period of ten years are
sufficient to repay the seed capital at the close of the first period of ten
years. The amount in the Cooperative Local Development Fund in that case drops
temporarily back towards zero. Since the inhabitants continue to make their
monthly contributions after seed loan repayment , the capital in the Cooperative
Local development Fund builds up again over the second period of ten years to
cover the cost of replacement of capital goods after twenty years. The
difference between a grant and an interest-free seed loan therefore becomes
operative only after ten years. In the first case, the flux of funds for
interest-free micro-credits is not interrupted; in the other the fund available
for micro-credits has to build up again during the second ten year cycle as it
did during the first one. Where part of seed funds is made available by way of
grant, the rest may be by way of soft (low interest) loans, including loans from
private sources. Condition for this is that the total sum to be repaid by the
population at the close of the first ten years’ period does not exceed the total
initial seed capital. On this
basis, a country such as Togo with a population of 4.500.000 can be “developed” by 2015 for
a total seed capital investment of
Euro 337.500.000, some or all of which can be repaid by the local populations at
the close of the first ten years’ period.
Health
policies
The Model addresses
preventive medicine related issues by supplying health clubs and hygiene
education courses in schools, clean drinking water, sanitation facilities, waste
recycling, smoke elimination, better diets and drainage of stagnant waters.
While it is not intended to substitute for the duties of national and regional
governments with respect to remedial health care, it is structured to help
provide local supplementary services in some cases. Tank commission areas (about
200 people) provide an ideal work terrain for a qualified nurse. Suitable
premises can be built under the local money systems by the community for nurses
willing to work within the local money structures in so far as they do not
receive formal money salaries. The cost of basic equipment and materials can be
cooperatively covered at tank commission, well commission, or project level by
small monthly formal money contributions paid into a Cooperative Health Fund.
The same considerations apply to structures for doctors. Well commission areas
each serving about 2000 inhabitants form an ideal work terrain for doctors’
practices (J.Muysken et al, op.cit.) and for other professions such as dentists
and physiotherapists. Project areas with 50.000-70.000 inhabitants can support
local hospitals, preferably at a central point of the project area. Once the
financial structures for cooperative local economic development have been set up
as a normal part of project execution, basic health care structures can be
provided at little or no extra cost to financially hard-pressed government
ministries. (Model, complete index, section 5.62 - Health aspects).
Project structures provide a natural framework for middle- and long-term
development in the health sector.
Education
policies
Some improvements in
education structures, like those for curative health care, can also be covered
under project applications. Single tank commission areas will often be too small
to support a primary school on
their own, as an ideal primary school population of perhaps eighteen pupils for each grade is required. (V.
Wilson, Does small really make a difference?, Scottish Council for
Research and Education (SCRE) Report 107, Glasgow, 2002). Assuming six grades, a primary school
population of 120-150 would be needed. These requirements can be met by groups
of two or three tank commission areas working together. Simple locally
constructed, centrally located buildings (with clean drinking water,
eco-sanitation and photovoltaic lighting facilities) and locally built school
furniture can be supplied by the local populations under the local money systems
set up by the projects. Teachers, especially teachers originating in the project
area, willing to work within the local money structures can be paid by the
residents in so far as they do not receive (regular) formal money salaries from
education authorities. Similarly, well commission areas are ideally sized
to provide a secondary education
structure to pupils from the 2-4 primary schools in their area. With classes of
18 pupils, they would need to have 350-450 pupils to provide coverage for the
various subjects studied. Project areas serving 50.000 to 70.000 are ideally
sized to provide further education in trades and perhaps a first year
preparatory course (propedeuse) for university studies for which students would
subsequently need to go to larger centres. (Model, complete index, section 5.63
Education).
Policies for sports and
culture
The financial and social
structures set up under the Model make it possible for individuals and groups to
get cultural and sporting groups off the ground. The Model does not attempt to
list or regulate all of the initiatives which could take place, as these are as
varied as the minds and wishes of the people. They include sports, coaching and
training activities in general, theatre, music, local arts and folklore groups.
Basic facilities can be provided under a combination of the local money systems
and interest-free micro-credit structures. Sports competitions can be organised
amongst clubs in a given project area, and amongst inter-linked project areas.
Cultural circuits can be formed, almost “automatically”, for theatre, dance and
music groups, providing them in many cases with full time
work.
Energy,
environment and conservation policies
All
initiatives taken under the Model are directed towards zero net energy use, so
as to avoid financial leakage from project areas and wastage of resources.
Energy used must be in the form of renewable energy originating in the project
areas themselves, so that they can be produced and paid for under the local
money systems set up. By way of example, the distributed drinking water systems
are powered by solar photovoltaic panels. Locally produced high-efficiency
stoves are fuelled by locally produced mini-briquettes made from locally grown
crops and waste products. Public transport facilities may be driven by bio-fuels
produced locally on a small scale.
Local production is necessarily environmentally neutral and is always
intended in the first place for local consumption. Communities in project areas
usually request cooperative food storage facilities coupled with traditional
food conservation practices such as solar drying and storage in the form of
edible oils. National level and regional environmental and conservation agencies can receive
job-creating support from the local money systems. An example is the protection
and sustainable exploitation of the Togodo National Reserve already described
above, where the Reserve could participate as a member of the local money
system, and use the services of local inhabitants as wardens and for forest
maintenance and services in exchange for sustainable low level local
exploitation of timber, hunting and fishing rights. (Model, Yoto Nord-Est 10
project).
Wieringerwerf,
Netherlands, 14th February 2007.
Terry
Manning is a 64 year old New Zealand lawyer. Resident in Italy for 25 years, he
was involved with the development
of innovative pumping technologies for the world’s poor and in particular the
spring rebound inertia hand pump technology and the solar submersible horizontal
axis piston pump technology. For family reasons, he has been living in the
Netherlands since 1993. His observations of the world of development (“the aid
industry”) were such that he decided it had to be possible for even the poorest
to self-finance their own basic integrated development. After many years’ self-financed work, he
succeeded in moulding an original combination of social, financial, productive
and service instruments into a Model for self-financing ecological sustainable
integrated development suitable for general application in rural and poor urban
areas throughout the world. The Model enables interested parties to draft their
own integrated development projects free of charge and to apply for seed
financing for them.
Terry
Manning has placed his work in the public domain, under the control of the Dutch
NGO “Stichting Bakens Verzet” which means “Another way”. His address is Schoener
50, 1771 ED Wieringerwerf, Netherlands, tel. 0031-227-604128l; e-mail:
bakensverzet@xs4all.nl
Typical list of
graphs and drawings.
List of
abbreviations used.
Documents for
fuunding applications.